“I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing anything in your closet,” Rachel said as she slowly thumbed through my clothes.  It was no surprise since our relationship had been rocky from the start.

Rachel and I met our freshman year of college, in the Heritage Halls kitchen that we would share for the next nine months.  She was dressed in a tight-fitting, attention-grabbing top and tight-fitting (attention-grabbing!) pants. There were six, maybe seven young men crowded around her, combing through her long-blonde hair, feeding her grapes, and fanning her with palm fronds.  Clearly, she would have a husband by December and then there might be room to maneuver in the kitchen (as if I was going to make use of the kitchen).

She was at least nice enough to make small talk over the din of men praising her beauty and goodness.

“So are you all moved in already?”

“Yes,” I replied, pushing my glasses further up on my nose.  ”I had to get everything set up before Late Summer Honors begins tomorrow — I don’t want anything to disrupt my study of Aristotelian philosophy.”

“Right.  That makes sense,” she said, stifling a chuckle.

“You don’t happen to know where I can buy some new pocket protectors or a TI-85 graphing calculator, do you?” I asked.

“Um, no.”

I heard wild laughter as I walked out of the kitchen.  It was going to be a long year — the nerd and the tramp living side-by-side.*

***

And it was a long year.  Or at least a long two days before Rachel ran into me in the hall, with my head between my knees, ratting my hair and liberally spraying it with AquaNet in preparation for the first freshman dance.

This was not that dance, but it gives you the flavor

I think she started to suspect that there was more to me than graphing calculators and philosophical inquiry.  And I began to realize that her tight-fitting (attention-grabbing!) pants were actually just khakis . . . it must have been the lighting.

A few weeks later, I went down to the basement of our building and found Rachel studying on a blanket covered with scriptures and French books and assorted texts.  I can’t remember our exact conversation but it went something like this:

“Actually, Rachel, I really like you.  You’re fun.  And funny.”

“Really?  Cause I like you too.”

“Sorry I said you were skanky.”

“You never said that.”

“Oh . . . never mind.”

*Hug*

***

Which brings us back to the day that Rach examined my closet and determined that its entire contents were virtually unwearable.

“Dressing up” for my first day of college was corduroy overalls. Seriously?

Of course, I had heard that before.  After years of gently trying to steer me in a more fashionable direction, my Mom seemed to give up by high school and embrace my wardrobe choices, nicknaming me “Scumdog.”  But eventually the protests resurfaced and we routinely had conversations along these lines:

“Are you really going to wear those to school?  They’re pajamas.”

“But they’re comfortable.”

“But they don’t look good.”

“Who cares?”

“Most people do.  Why don’t you at least go put on some jeans?”

“Why do you care so much about what other people think?  It doesn’t matter.”

Although I had heard many times before that I needed a makeover, I had never budged in my opinion that it doesn’t matter.  My plain, almost-pajama clothes; my holey, patched-together shoes; my in-a-ponytail-every-day hair.

Typical outfit, typical expression

It. doesn’t. matter.  I have always believed that, and I always will.

But the genius of Rachel and my roommate co-conspirators was this subtle message: Sure, it doesn’t matter.  We like you no matter what.  But wouldn’t a makeover be SO FUN?!!  Come on; let’s do it!!  It’ll be awesome!!  (Expressed as only college freshmen can express it.)

Which is how I ended up in a chair at Great Clips, waiting as my roommates described to the stylist the haircut they had in mind for me.  Since I love surprises, I didn’t want to hear their plans and I actually managed to keep my eyes closed during the entire cutting process so that all I saw was the final product.  After hair came clothes.  They weren’t about to turn me into a shopper, so we settled for a trip through Rachel and Meghann’s closets.  Finally, make-up.  And posing for pictures.

This is how my roommates sent me home for Thanksgiving break, a look that my family was never expecting.  I think I tried to pretend that I had really changed my whole style, but who can stay in real clothes for a whole day?  Not this Scumdog.

***

Although I was never completely reformed, I did shop out of Rach’s closet intermittently for the next several months, especially if I was going to be seeing Grant, my freshman-year crush.

When the school year ended and we all parted, I had a pile of Rach’s hand-me-downs and a lifelong fashion consultant.

Rach visited me in California the next year (I was too ill by then to go back to school) and brought clothes she was ready to discard.

Us at Elysian Park in L.A.

She had me try on her new Calvin Klein jeans (pictured above), and then took me to the outlet so that I could buy an identical pair.  My Mom was so delighted at a cute, well-fitting pair of jeans that she bought two more for my birthday.  That was in 1999, and I wore those three pair of jeans religiously until July 2011 when the final pair gave up the ghost.

Me and my jeans seeing the country together

 Rest in peace, favorite dark blue, low-rise Calvin Klein jeans; I miss you.

When I finally moved back to Utah for school, Rach was even more attentive to my wardrobe.  She would swing by my house on the way home from classes and say, “I’m done with this sweater.  It will look cute with your jeans.”  (No need to specify which jeans, they were all the same.)  Or she would call after work, “I’m coming to pick you up.  There’s a coat at Old Navy that I know you’ll love.”

I still love it; I refuse to give it up even though it’s seen better days

Not long after I graduated from BYU and moved to D. C., Rachel fortuitously moved east as well.

Us at the Tidal Basin in D.C.

Fortuitous, since I needed a swimming suit for a trip to Puerto Rico with the family I lived with.  I can’t be trusted with a responsibility like picking out a swimming suit.  I’ve been shopping with a few other people in my life, but I’ve never seen a shopper like Rach.  She had such an eye for the best stuff, and an intuitive sense of how I could get through a T. J. Maxx visit without hyperventilating. (I really hate shopping.)

“Just go sit in a changing stall, Lars, and I’ll bring you stuff to try on.”

“Okay.”

I’ve never been so obedient in my life.

***

Rachel dressed me for my brother’s wedding, dates with Neal, and, of course, her own wedding as a bridesmaid.  She picked a silky black skirt, clingy black sweater, chartreuse tank-top/scarfy-thing (she’s going to be so mad that I’m butchering the description of her agonizingly chosen ensemble), black fishnets, and a wedge heel.  I’m not gonna lie; I looked good.

I was sure I had a picture showing the fishnets . . .

Little did Rach know that her carefully constructed outfit would prove useful later.  After a year and a half of dating, Neal and I broke up in October 2006.  Although I was the one doing the breaking up, I was heart-broken.  I wept, sobbed, cried . . . while he sat stoically on the couch as I broke up with him.  Crazy.  Since we were still in the same ward, I knew that come Sunday I wanted to replace the picture of that weepy girl in her pajamas (pajamas Rach gave me, by the way).

Sugar daddy PJs, in lieu of an actual sugar daddy

So I busted out the skirt, sweater, tank-top thingy, fishnets (especially the fishnets), heels, and made sure to exchange pleasantries after Sacrament meeting.  BAM!  Six months later, we were married.  I’m pretty sure that’s not a coincidence.

There are not very many things in my wardrobe now that Rachel wouldn’t get some credit for helping to place there, either literally or indirectly.  Of course, I still spend the vast majority of my time in a worn pair of green scrubs she gave me freshman year.  There are only so many new tricks you can teach an old Scumdog like me.

* Dramatization may not accurately represent either the nerd or the tramp.

I am still trying to find a couple of specific pictures from my later years before I post that piece, but in the meantime, I updated my post about songs from my freshman year with representative pictures. No doubt I get more joy looking at them than anyone else will; it takes me back to such a fun, carefree time in my life. That first year of college figures very prominently in my life story, from the frivolous, like makeovers and dating stories (my first kiss!), to the decidedly serious, like the beginning of my journey through therapy. Thank goodness I now have the pictures to match the stories!

A mixed tape my roommates and I made to remember freshman year (still one of the very best and most significant years of my life) in 243 Young Hall:

Side 1:

1. Carrying the Banner (from Newsies) — I can almost hear Meg and Rach singing this from their middle bedroom
2. Footloose, Kenny Loggins — song of choice to get pumped up for cleaning checks if I remember correctly (Speaking of cleaning checks . . . )

1. Almost Paradise, Ann Wilson and Mike Reno (from Footloose)
2. If She Would Have Been Faithful, Chicago
3. Can’t Fight This Feeling, R. E. O. Speedwagon — a tribute to a certain roomie’s discovery that she might be in love with one of her best friends (it’s a testament to how much I loved those girls and wanted to remember them that I even included this song on my tape since I kinda hate it and always have)
4. Wishin and Hopin, Ani DiFranco (from My Best Friend’s Wedding) — we lip-synced to this for a ward talent show; photographic evidence somewhere in this house (Photographic evidence located . . .)

1. Journey to the Past (from Anastasia)
2. My Heart Will Go On, Celine Dion — this was the year of Titanic, after all, which some roommates saw at least six times and I may or may not have been totally obnoxious about, repeatedly joking that “I don’t watch p0rn”
3. Lean on Me (from Lean on Me) — turns out we were really into soundtracks
4. Walking on Sunshine, Katrina and the Waves
5. I Won’t Say I’m in Love (from Hercules) — no idea who started the Hercules thing (I don’t think I’ve ever seen it) but this was frequently heard around the apartment

Side 2:

1. Go the Distance (from Hercules)
2. Sugar, Sugar, The Archies
3. Don’t Know What It Is, Nancy Hanson — I put a country song on my mixed tape; further evidence of my undying love for those girls
4. Fearless Heart, Nancy Hanson and Peter Breinholt
5. Have You Ever Been in Love?, Peter Cetera
6. Love Me Still, Chaka Khan
7. Shoop Shoop Song (It’s in His Kiss), Betty Everett — pretty sure this earned a spot on the playlist based on one isolated incident of blasting it out of Rach’s car and dancing around a parking lot in the middle of the night (which, it turns out, I have a picture of . . . )

1. Just Like Jesse James, Cher
2. After All, Cher and Peter Cetera
3. All I Ever Have To Be, Amy Grant
4. She’s Like the Wind, Patrick Swayze
5. Angel of the Morning, The Pretenders
6. Good Company (from Oliver and Company)
7. In My Life, The Beatles (No relation to this song, but there was always a lot of dancing in the kitchen . . . )

Based on the diminishing memories of the final songs on the tape, I suspect that I just started filling time because there was left-over space.  So Meg, Rach, Em, did I get anything wrong?  Did I forget some totally important lip-syncing anecdote?  Was I really as obnoxious about Titanic as I think I was?